


Pause

by Lieutenant_Kader (geekstar)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Divergence, Character Death, Coping with Death: Starring Michael J. Caboose, Depression, Gen, Grief, Grieving, PTSD, Post-Finale, Suicide mention, platonic, s13 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9823622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekstar/pseuds/Lieutenant_Kader
Summary: Michael has a video that he can't stop pausing. He knows he's supposed to watch it all the way through, but he likes this better. This way, it'll never end.(The immediate aftermath of the season 13 finale if they had gotten their messages)





	1. Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> Realtalk: I was really not a big fan of the ending of season 13. It kinda fucked me up. So I'm coping by writing about Caboose, because Caboose is the best. Please comment if you can, I really appreciate feedback!

_"Hey buddy."_

Caboose clicked the video off. He turned it back on.

_"Hey buddy-"_

Click. Click.

_"Hey buddy-"_

Click. Click.

_"Hey buddy. I've got some bad ne-"_

Click. Click.

_"Hey bud-"_

"Caboose?"

He startled, sitting upright on his bunk and swiveling his sight over to the doorway. With the momentum of the movement his unlatched helmet swung with it, turning the already dim lighting into an overwhelming black.

"Hwa?! What the?? Aaaw I'm blind again!" He held the helmet on both sides, jostling it in frustration. "This always happens!!! Tucker never fixed this right!"

Tucker's voice appeared next to what Caboose assumed was initially Agent Washington, the two figures which had been illuminated by the back light of the doorway. His voice was quieter than usual. "Or maybe I fixed it just fine and it's backwards, dipshit."

When Caboose swiveled the helmet around he could catch a glimpse of Washington jabbing Tucker with his elbow. It was like seeing through a murky window with the opaque paused video over his visor screen.

He clicked out of it.

"Hallo." Caboose said, stuffily. Tucker and Wash turned their gazes to him, hesitant and calculating. They both looked tired. Of course, Agent Washington always looked exhausted, but the pair looked more withered than usual.

"Uh, yo." said Tucker. He looked at Wash, who looked at Tucker, who then did a little gesture thing toward Caboose with his head, which Wash sputtered and did as well.

Caboose thought it was pretty silly.

"Well, this is fun, but I think I am going to sleep." Caboose said, yawning as loudly as physically possible. Tucker and Wash looked at him again. "Wow, you don't even need to remind me today! I am going to sleep all by myself! Wow! Gosh. Which means you can leave thanks good night."

He laid back down in one heavy motion and stopped moving.

Agent Washington cleared his throat, foreboding his ‘I’m about to talk about emotions even though I’m uncomfortable talking about emotions’ voice that Caboose knew he did when Washington wanted to talk about things that Caboose didn’t necessarily always want to talk about.

“ _Caboose…_ ” Washington started, in the exact tone prophesied not moments before.

Caboose began to snore loudly.

Tucker sighed in exasperation and groaned. “Caboose!”

Caboose turned over in his bed, only more determined. "Sleeeepysleepysleepysleepy."

Wash sighed, running a hand through his hair. In a quieter whisper, not meant for Michael’s ears but received by them nonetheless, the disheveled agent whispered to Tucker,  "I don’t understand. Doesn't he usually WANT to talk about Chur-"

In one rapid motion, Caboose rolled back out of bed, leapt toward the door, and slammed it shut. "I SAID GOOD NIGHT THANK YOU YOU'RE WELCOME."

The two in the hallway stood, shocked, then looked at each other. Tucker shrugged and whispered, "I told you it wouldn't work."

Wash was about to say something, but the sound of a muffled, familiar _"Hey Buddy"_ on the other side of the door stopped him.

Tucker stiffened and left before Wash could really think of anything to say.

 

* * *

 

Wash found himself talking to a door for the seventh time that week.

“Caboose,” he started, voice cracking and weathered from a week that had been nothing but exhausting, “You need to come out. Or at least let me in.”

There was silence this time. Complete silence. It was unsettling, to say the least.

“...Caboose?” Wash called out, a little louder, anxiety bubbling in him and frustrated that he was talking to a door. He attempted in vain to open it, quickly realizing it was locked. It wasn’t usually locked.

Wash’s voice took on an authoritative tone that he hoped wasn’t laced with panic. “Caboose, either answer me or open the door.”

Another long silence. Wash was holding down panic flaring in every centimeter of his body, ready to outright tear the door down. _“Ca-”_

“No,” a voice finally called out. Wash breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

“Caboose, what are you doing in there?”

“Nothing.” Caboose said. Wash was tempted to believe him. He had seen the man sit around and do absolutely nothing but mope before; the only difference was that the moping usually had enough volume to echo.

Wash took a deep, deep breath and thought about how to deal with the situation before him. _Feelings work with Caboose. Feelings usually work with Caboose. But Caboose doesn’t want to talk about his feelings this time._

Wash closed his eyes as he tilted his head forward to rest it on the cool metal of the door. “You don’t have to talk, or do anything right now. I’m not going to come in and tell you how to…”

He stopped again, uncertain of himself.

He thought about the chaos of the past week; how Tucker was always angry and on the edge of a fit, how the reds were disturbingly reserved, how anxious Donut was, how Simmons couldn’t get Grif to act the same. He thought about how Sarge had looked at Wash three days prior and had told him with a heavy voice, “We’ll get through this, son,” then looked out with a calm, confident smirk and said, “That damn blue always comes back somehow.”

He thought about ghosts. He thought about how many times he’d wished he could forget the ghosts of his past, and he wondered if the reds and blues would ever be able to find peace and stop wishing for their ghosts to re-appear.

He wondered for the hundredth time that godforsaken week if Church had done it for more than a chance to save his friends. 

He thought about the implantation.

He tried to stop thinking about it.

Wash exhaled a shaky sigh. “I’m...really tired, Caboose. Really, really tired. Can I just...come in and sit down?”

He admitted to himself that it was manipulative. But it was also as honest as he could possibly be in the moment. And if he wanted Caboose to open up and talk about this, maybe he had to take the lead.

He waited for a sign, only lifting his head from the door when he began to hear movement from the other side. Wash knew well enough from the sound that Caboose was haphazardly shoving something under his bed.

The door slid open jerkily- a characteristic of the old, metallic architecture of these bases, emphasized by the one opening it. Caboose stood before him with no attempt at eye contact, but Wash took in his appearance in a single moment. The last time Caboose was depressed, Wash hadn’t seen as much of him without his suit. The few times that Caboose _had_ taken his suit off, it had never looked as bad as this.

His hair was disheveled and greasy, eyes red and swollen with shadows under them; his skin was paler than usual and splotchy from crying, as was his ragged old BLUE TEAM -1 sweatshirt that definitely hadn’t been changed out of in a day or two and mottled with stains. His slump, although not decreasing his impressive height by any great measure, was apparent enough to remind Wash of his own neck-ache. Most noticeable of all, Michael J. Caboose was wearing the most sour, begrudging expression that Wash had ever seen on him.

“Hi, Agent Washington.” Caboose said.

Wash had found himself holding his breath again. He let it out. “Hi, Caboose.”

No eye contact was made by the time he turned away, walking over to his bunk and sitting on the floor with his back against the frame, legs splayed out.  
Wash hesitantly stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He looked around and....didn’t see anything too terrible. Crayons and scribbled papers were strewn about and his bed was unkempt, but otherwise, Caboose had always been surprisingly tidy even in the worst of times. With everything but himself, that is.

“I don’t know why you need to stay in here, Agent Washington.” Caboose said, testily.

He looked back at Caboose, who was staring at the ceiling. “What?”

“You have other places to not be tired in.” Caboose said in the same tone, face twinged with a sour frustration.

Wash put away for the moment how...acerbic Caboose could be. He set aside how tired he was, how upset he was that no one seemed to want to work through this, and took another deep breath. He thought about how many times Caboose had gone through this. How many times can you lose the person most important to you? Maybe being a little bitter wasn’t the worst crime to commit during a time of mourning.

After a tense, painful pause, he stepped over to a clear spot a few feet away from Caboose and sat down, feeling older than he should as his joints ached upon bending, and cringing slightly at the metallic bed-frame digging into his spine.

He folded his arms and propped them on his knees, staring at the blue soldier over them. And suddenly, like time giving him whiplash, he felt much, much younger, remembering decades past when he had sat like this with his younger siblings as children, after fights and yelling and bloody noses being wiped into ragged sleeves.

But they were not children- not even Caboose, who loved things with a hard-won purity but grieved like a soldier. It wasn’t innocence that allowed Caboose to always stand back up and believe in a better day- it was strength of character. Wash couldn’t dream of faulting him for mourning now. Let him have his time.

Brutal honesty had won him entrance, so he tried again. “I just...wanted to be here, right now.”

Caboose didn’t seem to react, so Wash pushed forward, trying to find the words. “I’ve been running around the past couple days, trying to help everyone, but....I was worried about you. So it’s....nice to sit here and at least-”

 _At least see you alive, living, breathing,_ Wash thought to himself, falling into a stutter of thought. Because he was being selfish; helping everyone was at least a reminder that _they_ were still alive. _Someone_ had survived. They could _keep_ surviving, and he would keep checking, making sure no one else left when his head was turned. Making sure he didn’t lose anyone else.

“To uh....to see….” This was too much for him, he realized in a moment of nauseous revelation. He curled in on himself a little and took another deep breath. It slowly dawned on him that he wasn’t doing that very well. There was a weight on his chest that pinched at his lungs.

Admitting to Caboose that just sitting here and seeing he was alive was farther than he could go, farther than he’d ever gone. He couldn’t say it. He wished he could for Caboose’s sake, but he couldn’t.

Caboose shifted at last, bringing his legs up to his chest in a mirror of the soldier next to him, fidgeting with his hands. Finally, his eyes glanced toward him.

“You...do not need to talk, also, if you do not want to.”

Wash laughed breathlessly. “Thanks, Caboose," he said with sincerity. 

“You’re welcome," Caboose said, staring. Wash wasn’t looking anymore, but he could feel it. And it was fine. It was fine. He breathed for a while, sitting and thinking, awed once again that Caboose had managed to be a friend to him in the most important ways, which Wash floundered to do the same for him.

 


	2. The Last of Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tucker and Caboose deal with themselves in very different ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah this is a hard one to write, I'm less used to writing blue team even though I love the hell out of them. Hope you guys like? Pretty nervous about my writing for this one.

Kimball’s chest rose as she inhaled, strikingly collected, calm, strong.

“Anything.” She stated.

Of course she was collected; she had won.

_They_ had won, Tucker reminded himself, _we_ won. They should all be celebrating. They had all lost friends, and they had all won.

Tucker could hear his heart pounding in his ears, could feel the weight of sleeplessness digging into his muscles and joints, could feel the hot rush of frustration fill the temple of his skull for a white hot moment before it was drained like all the rest. Tension and exhaustion thrummed through his body at every moment, begging for peace from the emotional and physical turmoil of the past few weeks.

He wondered if Wash could read the tension in his posture beside him. He dared not glance toward Caboose, who had practically been dragged to the meeting room against his will and had been standing like a dead tree on the other side of him, lacking his usual pep and strut to an eery degree.

He knew what Carolina would look like: stiff, head held high, mature, perfect, somehow perfectly disguising her misery while being so fucking obvious at the same time. He wondered if the reds could see how broken they all were.

Another flare of heat burst through his skull and he fought down the petty urge to take his grief out on the reds. They had never lost a teammate. They didn’t know what this was. He nearly _wanted_ one of them to say some stupid shit so he had a good enough reason to throw a fist at some point.

The exhaustion fought the anger as the sad truth of the matter came back: The reds didn’t know, but they understood. They had been pretty reserved the past few weeks as much as the rest. And they were tired. All of them were tired. They were all a team.

What did he want? What did they need?

Tucker knew what he wanted to tell Kimball, the knee-jerk reaction born from anger and guilt and mourning that wanted to pour forth from every cell of his body that he knew he couldn’t say.

“I want Church back,” Caboose responded.

It was like Caboose was saying it for him, but without the vitriol, the anger, the spite. Only the honesty. And Tucker felt it all melt down to that as the grief resettled, clear like water on a black night.

All eyes turned to the blue soldier, donned in armor for the first time since the fight, helmet downcast. Tucker didn’t bother to look. He squeezed his eyes shut beneath his helmet, seeing stars, letting the waves hit him.

Donut, miraculously, was the first to speak tentatively, “...You guys... _told_ him, didn’t you?”

He could hear Wash respond, tiredly, “We tried, but I don’t think...I don’t know if he understands...He hasn’t really talked about it.”

“Fucking great,” Grif muttered with a sigh, spiking Tucker’s anger again with a jolt. He bit his lip to hold it in. Wash had kept telling him, _we have to stick together now more than ever_ , and Tucker didn’t get it, couldn’t wrap his mind around such a sickeningly simple notion through the knots and tangles of all his other thoughts, but the last thing he needed right now was to make Wash disappointed, so he had tried to follow along. Tried not to spit fire at every little comment. Bite his tongue.  

Kimball regained the small amount of composure that had deteriorated with Caboose’s comment. “Epsilon’s death-”

And suddenly everything went white hot, and Tucker’s head shot up, forgetting himself completely.

**_“Church."_ **

He could feel all eyes in the room turn. He didn’t give a fuck, eyes locked onto Kimball staring back at him, hostility in every centimeter of his posture.  

He was tempted to look to Caboose, to see if he had reacted to the term _death_ , to search for a sign of understanding, of hurt, but he couldn’t do it. Easier to be angry, to fight, to flirt with the idea of losing control. But he stood on the precipice instead, ready, finding comfort in the opposition.

The tension was palpable in Kimball’s pause, but eventually, she continued. “... _Church’s_ death was a sacrifice made for the good of all of Chorus, and for all of you. It’s my responsibility to afford you a future worthy of that sacrifice, and worthy of the sacrifices you have made, in turn, for Chorus.”

She ripped her gaze from Tucker to look at all of them. “Anything. Anything we _can_ give you, we will.”

“We need time,” Wash said, like a real leader. The leader they needed right now.

“We need a fucking break,” Grif responded, voice fully laced with uncomical exhaustion, and Tucker remembered again: The reds didn’t understand their loss, but they had fought for them. With them. He dropped his gaze from Kimball again, frustrated at nothing and everything and himself instead.

“Maybe an...extended one?” Simmons offered tentatively, eyeing the others before turning to Kimball again. “I mean, we were heading home before we crashed here…”

“Earth wouldn’t be safe for you, not when our ties with the UNSC are threadbare and Hargrove could still have men after you,” Kimball responded. “However, we could arrange for your protection at an undisclosed location. Somewhere you would be safe for whatever amount of time you needed.”

There was a strange silence as the offer hung in the air.

“That…” Wash started. “That is an option.”

 

* * *

 

 

Michael’s legs didn’t feel like moving a lot today.

He wasn’t used to being this sluggish. Last time Church had left, he would get sad sometimes, and he would try to take a walk around the area, looking at trees or birds or the remains of their crashed ship, and work to accept that somehow all of those would remind him of Church in some way. And if he didn’t feel better after walking, he would cry, and if he didn’t feel better after crying, he would just feel tired, and he would lie down until he felt like moving again.

He didn’t feel like moving much at all nowadays.

“Caboose, I don’t want to drag you all the way back,” Tucker said as the meeting room cleared out. Wash hung back in the doorway, always three steps away from them at the farthest, Carolina down the hall, always in the shadows, tentatively close.

He remembered when Tucker would give Church piggyback rides when they all first met. Michael’s mind said: That makes you want to cry. But his body did not respond. Nothing seemed to respond.

He would tell his legs, hello friends, I would like for you to move now, but they would not respond the way they were supposed to. It was strange to have to remind them in the first place, really; so much of what he knew was ingrained in his muscle memory, dependable when the complications of thought and dialogue and fact got in the way of action.  

He figured everyone needed a reminder every now and then, even arms and legs. And everyone needed a break sometimes too.

“Move, Caboose.” Tucker said, placing his hands on Michael’s shoulder and putting pressure on him, digging heels into the floor. It did not work.

“That didn't work, Tucker,” Caboose said to let him know. Sometimes Tucker didn’t see obvious things.

“It shouldn’t have to! Move your fucking feet!” The teal soldier snapped, shoving harder to little effect.

“My legs don't feel like it right now, no thank you.” Caboose responded. Tucker was being slightly rude to his legs.

“Fuck!” Tucker expelled, throwing his hands up and walking past him and Wash.

“Tucker-” Wash started, reaching a hand to a shoulder, only for it to be brushed away. 

“No, fuck it, he can do what he wants,” Tucker snapped, not looking back as he walked past Carolina down the hallway.

It was all right though. Caboose understood. Tucker was just frustrated. He didn’t like it when Church left either.

 

* * *

 

Tucker had started running laps when he couldn’t sleep.

He fucking hated laps. But what else did you do to distract yourself? God, he was acting like Wash.

Wash was vaguely back to prowling around like a goddamn maniac, walking down the corridors at night checking on everyone like a stalkerish mother, but Tucker only had half a heart to tease him. After all, he had only discovered Wash doing it while Tucker had been attempting the same thing.

His laps always ended by turning into some kind of aimless walk, which turned into an _aimed_ walk, which turned into checking on everyone, which turned to getting sick of himself and turning tail back to bed.

He usually didn’t stop at Caboose’s door, but, well, here he was suddenly, staring it down like he could laser-face it with enough frustration.

Here was the dumbest part: Checking on everyone wasn’t even fucking useful. What was he gonna do, open everyone’s doors and wake them up? _Hey, Tucker here, just checking in to see if you’re alive Caboose/Simmons/Sarge/Grif/Carolina/Wash/Donut/so on. No need to get out of bed, just need to check your vitals really quick._ What kind of nut job would he be?

But what was dumber was walking down the hallways as if he could tell they were all alive or not behind the door, like there wasn't an astronomically low chance he would just happen across some pirate assassin lurking down the corridors, ready to strike.

Granted, he _could_ kind of tell when they were in their rooms, breathing and being alive and shit. The reds and blues were never quiet people. He would either hear Wash talking in his sleep or find him patrolling down the hallways himself. Carolina was the same.

Simmons’s android parts weren’t that loud, but in the silence of the corridors and without the armor to mute it, there was always faint whirring sounds. That, or he would be talking with Grif (who for some reason would be there, of fucking course, bickering with Simmons at half past three, and Tucker was really starting to wonder if they had finally got it on). If Grif wasn’t with Simmons, he would be snoring, like usual.

Tucker had figured Sarge slept sometimes, but he began to doubt it, always hearing Sarge tinkering with metal pieces or mumbling to himself, stomping around sounding busy. Sounding like he couldn't sleep. 

Donut was one of the only ones who slept quietly, but he left pop music on low as he slept, so Tucker just made it a rule that if he ever finished his midnight patrols without fucking ABBA stuck in his head, something was wrong.

Caboose had always been a loud sleeper, a loud snorer, a loud everything. He tossed and turned in bed so intensely that his bunk would shake. If he had a good dream he’d wake up and proclaim it to the world. If he had a bad dream he’d do the same with twice the volume. He would talk, he would occasionally fucking sing in his sleep, and there had been more than one occasion that Tucker had stopped Caboose from sleepwalking all the way to red base back in Blood Gulch.

Tucker blinked. Was that why he had stopped at Caboose’s door? Because it was so quiet?

Of course that was it. Not that he couldn’t stop feeling like shit for getting mad at Caboose earlier. Not that he had recently developed an itching paranoia over knowing where Caboose was at every moment of every second of every day lately. Not because as soon as Tucker had stormed off he had immediately wanted to walk back, follow Caboose like a damn dog the way Caboose had followed him and Church around for the last decade. Not that he was worried.

He wasn’t worried.

It was just quiet.

And that was weird. It was _weird._

His fist hovered over the door before falling again.

This was absurd. It could be nothing. And then Tucker wouldn’t be able to pretend he hadn’t been walking down the halls out of his fucking mind for a week. Caboose would know, because somehow Caboose _always_ knew, especially when Tucker didn’t want him to. And then Caboose would magically be dealing with this better than Tucker, turns out, and Tucker would feel like shit about it, and embarrassed as hell, and the next morning Caboose would bring it up in front of everyone and they’d all know that Tucker was weak and going nuts and went to _Caboose_ for some kind of hellish comfort. 

But it was _really_ quiet.

He wondered what he would do with himself if he walked away and found out the next morning that something had really been wrong, that he could have been there, could have done something, that he had fucked up again.

Caboose wasn’t supposed to be quiet.

He decided against knocking and just went ahead to open it. It wasn’t locked, thank fuck, sliding out of his way. Any hope of a quiet peak was destroyed by the sound of metal against metal as the door slid open incrementally. If he was lucky, Caboose would be deep asleep and not notice-

The first thing he saw was Church, and froze in his tracks.

The videos looked like his hologram. Blue pixelation illuminated the otherwise pitch black room, Caboose's helmet a centerpiece on the floor, projecting the image out in front of it. 

Michael was where he usually was nowadays, curled up in front of his bedside wrapped in blankets, head tucked into himself to rest on his knees. 

The video was paused. 

Tucker stared at the hologram, similarly frozen in place. 

He had watched his own video, of course, everyone had. Wash told him it would help him work through the grief. It hadn't. Or maybe it had. Tucker didn't know. He just knew he was mad. He understood why Church did it, of course, but that didn't mean it wasn't fucking stupid. And unfair. And shitty. To leave him behind again. To leave _them_ behind again. 

He hadn't watched it since, but here he was now, staring at that fucking ghost.

"Hello, Tucker." 

Caboose said it fairly quietly, but it still managed to make Tucker jump a bit. He looked to see the man staring back at him, a tired blank expression outlined in a cobalt glow.

"Uh, hey." Tucker said, suddenly realizing he had to _deal_ with this. "Sorry, just, checking in." 

"I know." Caboose said, and promptly dropped his forehead back down to his knees, sighing deeply.

This was a good time to leave. He definitely wanted to leave. This was awkward as hell. He didn't need to interrupt Caboose's little pity party. 

His eyes tilted back to Church. 

He stepped in a bit. "So, can't sleep either?"

"My body doesn't want to." 

Tucker crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame, a huff of breath escaping him. "You mean like the way your legs didn't want to move earlier today?" He said it with the least amount of sarcasm he could filter out of his tone. 

"Yes," Caboose responded simply, immobile. 

Tucker hummed. "That why you've been moping around in here?"

"My body is sad."

Dammit, fuck, why did he decide to do this. "Yeah," Tucker responded, feeling morose and empty.

Being around Caboose lately didn't make him as angry as it usually did. More often than not, now he seemed to melt it all away, leaving just the waves of mourning. It had been why Tucker had been avoiding him, but right now it suddenly felt...calm. Not as chaotic and tiresome as the anger, but a lot more terrifying.

He slid down to the floor. "So what's up with the video? Don't tell me you've been watching it on repeat or something. Kinda creepy dude." 

"It's not creepy, _Tucker,"_ Caboose said, tossing a tired deadpan expression over at Tucker before dropping back into his knees. "I'm just watching the first part, anyway." 

Tucker rolled his eyes. "Of course you are. What's so great about the first part?"

Caboose didn't respond, just curling into himself. After a moment- with a foreign amount of delicate thought put into his words- he said, "The first part is...nice. It is a good part. Maybe...maybe I don't need the rest." 

Tucker blinked. "What? What do you mean?"

Caboose whined into his arms, visibly frustrated. "I am tired, I don't want to explain. I am sad. My body does not want to move. It will be okay." 

Tucker opened his mouth to speak, but Caboose just curled into himself more and mumbled, "It will be okay, I don't believe you, _I don't believe you."_

His mouth snapped shut. Caboose seemed to be having a conversation more to himself now, repeating the apparent mantra. Something in Tucker's stomach churned as the words seeped into his bloodstream. 

"Caboose," Tucker said slowly, feeling miraculously patient, ready to wait. "What do you not believe me about?"

Dead silence. He waited, and waited, and waited. No response.

Tucker looked back at Church. _You fuck,_ he thought. _You did this to us._

"All right, listen for a second," Tucker said. "I know I've been angry as hell lately. But I'm not...I'm not angry at you. Well, okay, sometimes I am, but what the fuck ever, that's not different from anything else ever. Don't worry about it if I get angry. And I won't be mad if you tell me why you're so upset. I don't know if that's why you aren't telling me, but, yeah. Don't worry about that." 

"Oh, I know that," Caboose said, face reappearing to look at Tucker, his voice tinged slightly with that snarky attitude Caboose could sometimes develop with him, and Tucker wanted to be mad, but it was so familiar that he only felt relief. "You are sad too. You are mad that he left us."

Few moments had Tucker felt like he had been metaphorically hit in the face with words, but Caboose could have actually walked up and smacked him upside the head and it would have likely had the same effect. Something about the simplicity of the statement and the brunt hit of honesty was too much.  

He took a shaky breath.

"Yeah," he exhaled, like a small slab of the glacier had chipped off his shoulders. "Yeah, I am."

They sat in silence for a while. 

"I am a little mad too," Caboose said softly.

"Yeah?" he responded with a tremor of a laugh. "That's...new. But like, okay though, you know that, right?"

Caboose didn't say much, looking like he might fall asleep where he was sitting.

"We should sleep, C'boose," Tucker murmured. Caboose didn't respond.

Tucker got comfortable where he was. After a while, his eyes fluttered as the weight of sleep and exhaustion pulled at him.

In the morning, he woke up in his own bed. Haphazardly placed.

**Author's Note:**

> Multi-chapter fic. These kiddos are messed up I'm not just gonna leave em like that! Geez!  
> I've never written for these two before so let me know if I'm getting their voices down. I really love these two as pretty complex characters so I hope I'm doing them justice.


End file.
